The Boy from Reactor 4

Nadia felt like a building block of her past had been yanked loose. “I don’t know.” But of course, that was a lie. She knew exactly what he meant.

“Your father was one of my crew. One of the three that got away.”

“What are you saying?”

“Your father was a thief, Nadia. You are a thief’s daughter.”

The walls closed in on Nadia. Her father wasn’t who she’d thought he was. Whatever her issues with his parenting, however demanding, strict, and unrelenting he’d been, she had always respected him. He was a man of integrity. Maybe she didn’t always like him, but she looked up to him. Now it turned out he’d been a thief, a criminal, and, by definition, a liar.

“Surely you’ve noticed that you have a certain resourcefulness. Who do you think you inherited that from?”

She was a thief’s daughter, Nadia thought. It was in her genes. And all this time she had thought she was just clever.

Damian saw how shocked she was. “What does it matter? Let go of the past. Look to your future. Your father would want it that way. You are his legacy. My boy is my legacy. He is a good boy. You must take care of him.”

They were returning to the big problem. “Uncle Damian, that’s just not realistic.”

“He has never been hugged,” Damian said, ignoring her comment.

“What?”

“He has never been hugged. His mother never touched him after she gave birth. She had problems, and she wasn’t the mothering type. Oksana takes care of me for the money. As for the coach and me…Men don’t hug their sons.” Damian nodded confidently. “You will hug him.”

Nadia shook her head as she searched for the right words to tell him that just wasn’t realistic.

“There are the hockey games, of course,” Damian said. “But they don’t count.”

“Excuse me?”

“The hockey games. Hockey is the main sport in Pripyat. There is a winter league for all the workers in the Zone. Coach brings my son to the games. He is the best player in the league. He is a defensemen. Defensemen usually don’t score many goals. But when he scored his first goal, at age thirteen, he got hugs from his teammates. They do that in hockey. So he started scoring more goals. Lots and lots of goals. But now that won’t matter so much. Because you are a woman. And you will give him proper hugs.”

Nadia needed to stop this fantasy before it went any further. “Uncle, I’m sorry. It’s just not possible.” Rather than discuss the dangers with a dying father, she tried to point out, “He doesn’t even speak English…How would he manage in America?”

“Once you sell the formula, you can use the money to help him build a life.”

“Excuse me?”

“The formula. Karel told me he took you to his laboratory.”

“And he told me Arkady never gave him the formula.”

“He didn’t. He gave it to me instead.”

“He what? He gave you the formula?”

“Yes.”

“Why you?”

“Because he trusted me.”

“Why?”

“Because I made him my willing accomplice.”

The gears in her head started to whirl. “Where is it? Is it here? Is it written down or stored on an electronic device? You must have several copies.”

“Arkady was an old Soviet scientist—he wrote it on a piece of paper and reduced it to a strip of microfilm. Then he burned the paper.”

“You mean there’s only one copy?”

“Yes. There is one, and only one, copy.”

Nadia nodded and let a few seconds pass. “Where is the microfilm?”

“In a locket. On a necklace. Around my son’s neck.”

Nadia straightened to her full height. The calculations weren’t hard to make. Hell, for the money this kind of trade secret would bring, she could buy her way out of trouble. She could hire an English language instructor and tutors and send him to private schools.

“Don’t share any of this with Oksana,” Damian said. “She takes care of me because she thinks there are ten million American dollars buried in the house somewhere.”

“The money you stole fifty years ago from the Soviet apparatchik?”

“How did you hear about that?”

“From a thief named Victor Bodnar.”

He cracked a wistful smile. “Victor Bodnar. The pickpocket lives.”

“Whatever happened to that money?”

“The KGB found it. After they tortured and killed three of my men.”

“I heard about that, too.”

“I have no money. What little I had I gave to Oksana for her to take care of me.” The creases in his face deepened. “Wait a minute. Are you in debt to Victor Bodnar?”

“He thinks so,” she said. “So does one of his associates. A young avtoritet originally from Moscow. And now there is another man from Kyiv with them. Older, distinguished.”

“These men are following you?”

“Yes.”

He paused and stared at Nadia. “This is not good. This was not part of my plan. If one of the men is from Kyiv, he must be both thief and government. They are one and the same. They have all the country’s resources to find you. You should assume they are close.”

“Oh, I don’t think so—”

“You will never get through customs if you try to leave Ukraine the way you came in. The man from Kyiv must have people waiting for you at the airport.” He seemed to make a decision. “I will get a message to my son that the time has come. He will meet you in Kyiv tonight.”